§ 34-45-2 - Legislative findings.
SECTION 34-45-2
§ 34-45-2 Legislative findings. – (a) The general assembly recognizes, finds and declares that:
(1) There exists a serious shortage of decent, safe, andsanitary rental units that are available at rents affordable to low andmoderate income families in Rhode Island. Many families are denied access todecent housing because they are unable to meet the higher cost of rent. Risinghousing costs in Rhode Island force low and moderate income families to live inunsafe, substandard units; commit such an unreasonably high percentage of theirincome for rent that they deprive themselves of the other necessities of life;or, worse, find themselves without housing. The inadequacy in the supply ofdecent, safe and sanitary affordable rental housing endangers the public healthand jeopardizes the public safety, general welfare, and good of the entirestate.
(2) Approximately sixty-seven hundred (6,700) units ofhousing in sixty-five (65) developments in Rhode Island which are presentlyaffordable to low and moderate income families are in danger of becomingunaffordable due to expiring use restrictions on the property. Low incomehousing units insured or assisted under §§ 221(d)(3) and 236 of theNational Housing Act, 12 U.S.C. § 1701 et seq., could be lost as a resultof the termination of low income affordability restrictions; low income housingunits produced with assistance under § 8 of the United States Housing Actof 1937, 42 U.S.C. § 1437f(c), could be lost as a result of the expirationof the rental assistance contracts; and rural low income housing financed under§ 515 of the Housing Act of 1949, 12 U.S.C. § 1701 et seq., arethreatened with loss as a result of the prepayment of mortgages by owners. Theloss of this privately owned and federally assisted housing, which would occurin a period of sharply rising rents on unassisted housing and extremely lowproduction of additional low rent housing, would inflict unacceptable harm oncurrent tenants and would precipitate a grave crisis in the supply of lowincome housing that was neither anticipated nor intended when contracts forthese units were entered into.
(b) There is, therefore, a compelling need to preserve theaffordability of these rental housing units to low and moderate income personsand families in Rhode Island in order to prevent the displacement of thesepersons and families and to assure an adequate supply of affordable housing forthese persons and families in Rhode Island.